Tag Archives: The Write Stuff

Virtual Migrants collective has been working hard on a touring poetical musical digital mash-up theatrical production that connects austerity, refugees and climate justice. We’ve been in rigorous rehearsals upping our performance game in song, poetry, story-telling and even a lil slice of grime. Guided by the calm soul energy wisdom of Amanda Huxtable the show is now ready for the road.

Blurb about the show and tour dates are below.

A story told through poetry, music and digital-media connecting legacies of inequality to climate change. Touring Oct-Dec 2015: Manchester, London, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Leeds and Leicester.

What is CONTINENT CHOP CHOP?‘Continent Chop Chop’ is a touring transmedia production linking narratives of climate change to the broader issues of poverty, race and social justice. Using interwoven narratives portrayed through music, poetry, and projected imagery, it will ask:

Who controls the narrative of climate change?

What are the connections between climate change and poverty?

How does the wider climate of austerity and scapegoating of migrants connect with climate change?

And why should anyone care when they don’t have enough to eat?

Drawing on diverse histories and narratives of climate justice from across the world, with music influenced by Afrobeat, experimental electronics, English Folk and deconstructed imperial and colonial anthems.

Featuring commissioned work from guest artists:

Nnimmo Bassey, a leading environmental activist who has won a number of awards and has played leading roles in Friends Of The Earth International, Oilwatch Africa and the Global South Network.

Friday Feelings by Harry Jivenmukta (featuring artwork by Janet Devine) is the very first individual collection of poetry to emerge from the Artists in Mind writing collective, The Write Stuff. Here’s the foreword I was asked to write for the book below.

Friday Feelings – Foreword

For two hours on occasional Fridays a group of people gather in a converted mill-building on the edge of Huddersfield town centre and create magic. The ritual begins with the setting out of tables in the centre of the room, chairs are assembled round the outside, the kettle is boiled, greetings are exchanged. As the last mug of steaming tea is delivered to the table, the sacred sacrament is passed around – crisp, white, blank sheets – take one, pass them along. Next, the magician’s wands: an assortment of biros – tools to connect thoughts direct from brain through body to fingers and out on to paper.

We create under the motto of AiM’s founder, John Holt: “Creativity is the immune system of the mind and the source of the mythic”. Continue reading →